The cows are different in India.
It is like the cows and the cats have swapped places. In Buntingford, a cat will happily slink into a neighbour’s garden, its fluffy ears and whiskers pleading for cream from an obliging pensioner. In Delhi, the cats dart frantically about the marketplace. Squawking. Paranoid. Their ears twitch in wake of the tuk-tuks hurtling by, and they raise their hackles at the approaching humans.
The cows, on the other hand, saunter through the hustle and bustle as though legitimately browsing for garam masala. Now, cows in Norfolk are suspicious – and for good reason. Each roll of tyre tread up the gravel path could mean a one way ticket to those mysterious factories, marked with a giant yellow M. They do not know the secrets of this place, but the general consensus is that the M stands for murder… But the sacred status of the Indian city cows gives them an air of arrogance, which rises up and mingles with the sweet incense burning through the market.
Raj was a city cow. Though often he would wander in spring, leaving the sweltering Delhi heat behind him. Each afternoon, from the first day of spring to the great rains, Raj would plod into the countryside in search of a place to cool off.
He settled under the great Jujube tree, as he had done so many times before. Raj was now eleven summers old, and had spent ten of them resting under the Jujube’s jade canvas. He did not know how many summers the tree had stood there, but thought it to be a great many more than eleven.
The Jujube was a humble tree. It did not bear fruit, as the mango or the coconut palm did so deliciously. Nor did it shout in oranges or reds, like the dazzling Gulmohar. It did not smell sweet as the Jasmine, nor grow so tall as the mighty Baobab. But the Jujube was wise. Raj and he had become great friends.
The first summer they talked of the earth and the trees. The second they talked of the rivers and seas and skies. Two more summers were spent discussing politics, and the fifth concerned the gods. Over the next four summers they had talked of humans and traffic and markets and trains and music and tourists and laughter and love and Raj couldn’t remember what they had talked of in this tenth summer because it had gone too quickly.
Elephants sounded their symphony over the horizon. The sun bowed its glowing head in response, and thunder announced the monsoons were on their way. Raj knew what they must talk of before the tenth summer was finally gone.
“What is wrong?” the tree whispered, leaves rustling under its soft words.
“I am old, friend” Raj replied.
The tree laughed in his usual way.
“You are far younger than I.”
“The sun is setting.”
“Yes.”
The dimming light cast a long shadow from the Jujube to the place where Raj stood.
“Will we ever meet again?” the cow asked. The Jujube tree thought for a while.
“I am going to tell you a story” he said.
Raj said nothing. He had always loved hearing the tree’s stories, and laid himself down to listen on the bed of long grass.
“In Delhi there is a village. And in that village there is a little blue house. And in the little blue house lives a little girl. A girl with coffee-brown eyes and delicate hands, clutching a pen decorated with white elephants. Tomorrow is that little girl’s birthday.”
Raj did not know who the tree meant. After all there were many little girls in blue houses in Delhi. He also did not understand how the Jujube knew of this girl, when he was so firmly rooted here. But still he said nothing, and the tree continued.
“And her mother will spend the day teaching her the ways of cooking, and her sisters will help. And her father will come home late. He will hand her a parcel, and press a finger to his lips. A small, square parcel, carefully wrapped into gold and black paper. When she opens the package the girl will find a tan leather notebook, printed with patterns and fastened with a gold clasp. Inside will be crisp white pages, waiting patiently for the little girl and her elephant pen.
After all, dear friend, words are not consumed, as the mangoes and the coconuts are. Their colours do not wilt and become pallid with the winter, like the fiery petals of the Gulmohar. Words are alive.” The tree said.
The thunder grew closer, applauding the Jujube. The moon kissed goodbye to the dusk as the sun sank lower still in the Delhi skyline.
“And that little girl will see life. She will see the earth and skies and markets and gods and tourists and politics and traffic and water and laughter and love. One day, in the summer, she will take a bus out of the city, with her notebook of leather and parchment, and her little white elephant pen. She will pass through the fields. She will see a cow, settling underneath a Jujube tree. And she will notice.”
“Oh.” Said Raj.
And the rains began.
afayewithwords 